The arrogance of the Catholic Church!

I read an article a week or two ago about how the Muslims have taken over as the world's biggest religion and there was something about it that didn't sit quite right with me.

Now please understand that I couldn't really care less who has the most people following their dogma but what struck me yesterday was the realization that the Catholic Church was talking about CATHOLICS, not Christians in general.

That would be about the same as saying that there are more Catholics than Sunnis and forget about the Shia or Sufi.

It is this egocentric attitude of the Catholic Church to discount other branches of Christianity as irrelevant that has been at the heart of many of the woes the Church has had to endure over the centuries.

Don't believe me.............. go ask Martin Luther, or John Knox, or even Henry V111!

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://Allans-Perspective.blogspot.com

Hubris Without Bounds!

One of my main beefs with mainstream religion is the Hubris (insolence, arrogance, wanton or contemptuous pride) that they displayed throughout their history. The Catholic Church put up these monstrosities while 99.9% of the population was living in abject poverty and squalor.
The Bishop slept here while John Doe slept in a mud hut, or worse!








Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God at www.God-101.com

Poor Pope!

Well, the Pope went and done it, and he done it good!

I realize that the Catholic Church is a two thousand year old institution, and they don't change fast, but this is the sort of idiotic, archaic thinking that I rant and rave about in my book "The Plain Truth About God-101" (What the Church doesn't want you to know!)

The Vatican issued a document yesterday restating its belief that the Catholic Church is the only true church of Jesus Christ.

It says although Orthodox churches are true churches, they are defective because they do not recognize the primacy of the Pope. (Ha, see what I mean? He's taking this personally!)

"It follows that these separated churches and communities, though we believe they suffer from defects, are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation," it said.

The document adds that Protestant denominations — called Christian Communities born out of the Reformation — are not true churches, but ecclesiastical communities.

Well, that's going to be a hell of a disappointment to my Lutheran Mother.

Poor Catholic Church is still pissed because King Henry and Martin Luther gave them a hard time about five hundred years ago.

This is the type of church you want to follow?

Not me!

Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God-101 (what the church doesn't want you to know!) at www.God-101.com

Saturday Morning Confusion!

Puppies for Sale!

I think that by now everyone has gotten on of those scam letters from Nigeria or wherever about the 15 or 20 million left in a bank account and "could you please help us get it out of the country!!!"

I keep thinking that there is no one stupid enough to fall for this shit but low and behold in the paper yesterday was an article about a guy right here in Ontario, who was an ACCOUNTANT of all things, losing his shirt in one of these scams.

(Remind me NEVER to have HIM do my books!)

On top of that we have your "congratulations, you have won the Spanish lottery, English lottery, French lottery etc.

Then there is the job offer of cashing cheques for an "offshore" company and keeping 10 or 15 percent as a commission.

Other companies have miracle products that you first have to invest in up-front before you sell a thing, and of course the multiple pyramid schemes floating around as well.

I just saw the latest trick today and some of these guys are really stooping to new lows in their quest for a fast buck.

Cute puppies are the latest lure for shameless scammers ready to put the bite on victims. Ads are placed for pure-bred puppies, and once the dog lover pays the initial price of several hundred dollars, the scammer dings the buyer for more money for transportation fees and taxes and shots.

Of course the pup never shows up!

Get this! Some of the scammers are even posing as Catholic missionaries who can't take their dogs to Africa.

They are appealing not only to dog lovers but also people who are supporting the Church!

My Mother is in her eighties and told me last week she wanted to get a computer! I said to her I didn't think it was such a good idea, but didn't explain why because she would have said, "Well I'm smarter than that!"

Yea, right!

Your "pass the donation tray" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Revelation, or Delusional Again?

Continuing with our "two for one Sunday," a strange thought came to me as I sat in the back of the church with my wife today.

Thinking about the George Carlin piece, (below) I had a thought!

I can't quite decide if it was a revelation, or I am just being delusional again!

First of all, yes I was in St. Georges with my wife and don't consider this hypocritical in the least. If you have read this column at all you know that while I do believe in in some sort of Supreme Being that is responsible for "First Cause," *** I consider the Resurrection a myth and misleading.

(It just doesn't work that way in this Universe. When your dead, your dead. That's a rule and to break it negates the whole thing and the Universe falls apart.)

Anyway, although my wife is a very good Catholic and I am not a Christian by any means, I still take her to Church now, (Especially since she got cancer!) and it makes her feel better.

I guess you could say she's being a good Catholic and I'm being a good husband!

Now we come to the crux of the matter, and this is where I need your help!

Sitting there at the back of the Church, a thought occurred to me.

The revelation (?) I had was this. Maybe God still influences things in the Universe, just not with US, since the advent of "Free Will!"

Perhaps, since our "maturing" into "free will," we are expected to be more like adults now and make our own decisions. (Or at least teenagers, which is really scary.)

When we were in the Garden of Eden (operating by instinct instead of reason) we were under God's care. Now, with a taste of the "Apple" (Reason) we are like the bird that's kicked out of the nest and told to sink or swim! That would explain the lack of any outside involvement in our affairs.

I only had this thought a few hours ago so don't take a half baked idea as Gospel, ;-) but it does seem to have some interesting possibilities.

If you have any thoughts on it please let me know!!

Your "questioning" scribe;
Allan W Janssen


*** Please do not confuse, in any way, "First Cause" (Big Bang) with Intelligent Design.

I.D. seems to be a watered down form of Creationism to make it more palatable and is trying to slip religion in through the back door. (You have to watch those guys!)

I, on the other hand, am a Darwinist who simply thinks that everything we see is NOT without purpose.

Rather, Something had to set it in motion.

The Big Bang simple can't be put in the same category as "spontaneous human combustion."

It don't work that way!

There is always a cause, and especially with something on the scale of The Bang.

It can't simply have just "happened!"

(That's my story and I'm stickin with it!)

P.S. If you want to see what I have against "Religion," look below and listen to George Carlin put things into perspective!

Stop with the dogma!

PARIS — For the secular French state, an attack by the country’s Roman Catholic hierarchy comes close to a declaration of war.

For two decades, the country’s Muscular Dystrophy Association has run a wildly popular annual telethon to raise money for medical research. (Remember, these are the people who idolize Jerry Lewis!)

This year, the Roman Catholic Church here has sullied the reputation of the telethon, with some church officials calling its financing of research on embryonic stem cells immoral.

“For us, these embryos are not things, but human beings,” Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon, told journalists on Tuesday.
“And from the depths of our faith, we cannot accept that they are selected, destroyed and the objects of experiments.”

France, like some other European Union countries, allows limited research using embryonic stem cells. Britain and Belgium are more permissive; Germany and Italy have stricter regulations. But the separation of church and state is an unshakable pillar of the French Republic, and these attacks have been met with sharp resistance.

Government officials and the leaders of the French medical establishment have made clear that the church has no business interfering in matters of state, especially when they involve a practice that is legal.

“It’s not up to the church to put any pressure on families who have recourse to genetic diagnoses, and even less to make the totality of donors feel guilty,” said Manuel Valls, a member of Parliament and mayor of Évry, the suburb of Paris where the Muscular Dystrophy Association is based.

Even President Jacques Chirac entered the fray, staunchly defending the telethon and upholding a 2004 bioethics law that permits stem cell research, with prior parental approval, on embryos that would have been destroyed.

The Catholic Church has consistently opposed research on embryonic stem cells, but the current verbal assault by church leaders is exceptional in republican France.

Speaking from personal experience, I have a wife who is waiting for stem cell research to help with a cure for Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

I also have a step-son who is waiting for stem cell research to help with his kidney transplant. This, so that he does not need to be on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of his life and does not face the possibility of another transplant operation later on.
So don’t tell me this research is immoral.
The church's opposition to it is!

Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God-101 (what the church doesn't want you to know!) at; www.God-101.com
And the petition to have people mind their own business instead of yours at; http://www.petitiononline.com/moses/petition.html

Short and not so sweet.

Just to get this straight, I remind you once again that last week the Pope quoted some 6-700 year old documents that basically said that some of Muhhamads teachings were "evil and inhuman" because they "spread their faith by the sword."

The Pope had to apologize for those remarks this week but just to prove how wrong he was some Muslims in Palestine went out and burned churches while in Somalia they killed a nun at a childrens hospital!
So there, take that Infidel!

Now here is where it gets even stranger. Muslim spokesman in different parts of the world have condemed acts by what they call "extremist elements" of Islam........ while at the same time calling on mainstream Muslims to practice restraint and not engage in any acts of violence in reprisal for the comments made by the Pope.

I may be a bit naive here but If Islam is such a religion of peace why do they have to issue an appeal for restraint in the first place.

Even though I am not a great fan of the Catholic Church, (or any other mainstream religion) I can't recall a single instance in the last five hundred years where the Vatican has had to call for calm and non-violence amongst the faithfull in regards to a perceived insult to Catholicism.

Remember boys and girls: Sticks and Stones my break my bones - but names will never hurt me...... So play nice!

Your Dismayed Scribe;
Allan W Janssen

I was all screwed up on drugs until I found Jesus -now I'm all screwed up on him

Well it's started. I am getting all sorts of mail telling me that to be saved the only thing I can do is give myself over to Jesus. Not only that, but nothing else can or will do it. All I have to do is belive, and that's the only thing I can do.

Here I am thinking the logical thing- what Jesus taught was a way to live. By following that way the "Kingdom of God" was not some far off thing that was a reward at the "end time." Rather it was a "state of grace" that was to be given to us in the present.

(Remember these Jews thought the "end time" would come while they were still alive. In some aspects they were a dooms-day cult.)

Whatever you think the church is telling you, - salvation and its reward in the afterlife was not the intention of Jesus. Rather he preached a way of living that afforded us the "kingdom of God" here and now.

Please don't tell me that the only way to live is to blindly follow YOUR way of thinking. As I said earlier, the Human Race needs to grow-up and start taking responsibility for its actions.

Remember, living and showing by example leads to a "state of grace" while trying to convert others to your way of thinking, (Do as I say, not as I do!) could be called the proverbial "devils work."

This means evangelism is not the way, and to travel down that road is self- defeating from a spiritual point of view.

To try and convert the "unbelievers" or the "infidels" is only the religious heirarchy telling us what to do. Believe me - anything they tell you is self-serving.

Even to this day the official doctorine of the Catholic church is "No Salvation outside the Catholic Church!"

If you want to find God, look inward, not outward. This is the real message of Jesus, -not the Pauline thought that morphed into the modern church.

Your humble servant
Allan W Janssen

Let's cut to the chase!

I am after the complete abolishment of any organized, institutionalized, entrenched, monolithic religious power stucture. By this I don't mean to ban them, but rather, gradualy have a movement towards personal spiritualism replace them. This is one of the few things I can say I really "believe" in!

As the human population starts to realize the negative influences organized religion has had on society and weigh this against the good they have done, the scale is starting to turn against them with greater rapidity each year.

In our less developed past, their was a time when the "church" or "mosque" was the forunner of all development and social advances, and their works weighed heavily on the side of advancing society. As against for the same reasons today

However, the more socialy conscious we as a people become, (NOTE; I mean individually, society as a whole is just another organized structure.) the further we travel down a road that I hope will lead us to an eventual, personal responsibility. We have to become accountable to ourselves and God without other humans (The Church) telling us what the "right way" is!

One of the big reasons Islam is undergoing such turmoil today is that they are in the same stage of development that Christianity was at the end of the dark ages. The Imams know all too well that the more sophisticated and educated the population as a whole becomes, the less sway they will have over them.

This is in itself one of the main reasons for the strife in the Middle East. That and trouble with Israel, plus corrupt authoritarian regimes, leads to a triad of problems that are only slowly resolving themselves.

It seems that one of the best ways we in the West can help the situation in the Middle East is to give the population a chance to become better educated and more world-wise. In other word subjected to other points of view.

This seems to be happening with greater rapidity as they become more exposed to outside influences.